CHICAGO (AFP) — A Chicago probate judge Friday declared wealthy aviator-adventurer Steve Fossett legally dead, five months after he disappeared piloting a small plane over the Nevada wilderness, the Chicago Tribune said on its website.
The judge, who held a hearing due to a law requiring seven years for missing people to be declared dead, said "I believe the evidence is more than sufficient," after questioning Fossett's wife, Peggy, other family members and a search-and-rescue expert.
Peggy Fossett in November had asked the Cook County, Illinois court to declare her husband dead so that the millionaire aviator's assets could be distributed according to his will.
The court petition said Steve Fossett's "wealth is vast, surpassing eight figures in liquid assets, various entities and real estate."
Fossett, 63, disappeared on September 3 after taking off in a small single-engine Bellanca airplane from Yerington, Nevada.
The search was suspended a month later after a squadron of planes scoured huge swaths of rugged mountain terrain without finding traces of his aircraft.
The court petition said that Fossett was flying for pleasure and not to look for a lake bed that could serve as a site for a bid to break the land speed record as previously believed.
He had planned to fly for about two to three hours, returning in time for lunch, the petition said.
He was carrying only a single bottle of water and his emergency locator transponder did not send a signal, leading searchers to believe it was destroyed in the crash.
The 57-page petition also documented why Fossett "did not have any reason to disappear."
He was "physically fit, happy and deeply involved in his passionate pursuit of adventure," it said.
He planned to build a single-man submarine using new technology in order to set a solo world record dive of nearly 36,000 feet (11,000 meters) into the Mariana Trench, as well as a project to set a new land speed record, the petition said.
Fossett was no stranger to danger, spending the past two decades chasing air and sea world records.
In 2005, he guided his Virgin Atlantic GlobalFlyer some 42,000 kilometers (26,000 miles) around the world, setting the record for the longest solo, non-stop, non-refueled flight in terms of distance.
"He was a survivor," a sobbing Peggy Fossett testified Friday, according to the Tribune. "Everybody thought he'd come walking down the road one day and have another story to tell."
Copyright © 2009 AFP. All rights reserved. More »
